I started a music WhatsApp group in 2023. I send one song a week on a Friday, with links to both Apple and Spotify, and an accompanying narrative/capsule piece. You’ll read it here on a Sunday. If you want to engage about a song, get a playlist or just get in touch, email me on [email protected].
Before he became a pop star who owned 1,000 pairs of spectacles and probably even more lurid outfits, Elton John was a somewhat modest, incontrovertibly good singer and songwriter. His recorded output until Blue Moves was filled with class, especially the trio of albums Tumbleweed Connection, Madman Across the Water and Honky Château.
In those days, with songs like Rocket Man, Your Song and Tiny Dancer, no-one imagined the exclamatory pop that would later emerge – think I’m Still Standing – although we’d seen glimpses on Caribou and Rock of the Westies, the two fault lines in a generally stellar set of 11 albums. By then Elton was a spent force for me, but there was a vault of gems.
I remembered this week the guitar-heavy version of Madman Across the Water, led by Bowie’s silver-clothed guitarist Mick Ronson, which was recorded for Tumbleweed but scrapped because it was such a rocker. I listened to it again this week and then revisited the original title track from Madman the album, which is today’s Friday Song. It’s big on tension and release, featuring the acoustic guitar of Davey Johnstone, Chris Spedding on electric, bass man Herbie Flowers and the beautiful swelling orchestrations of Paul Buckmaster.
It’s really something of a masterpiece of sound, structure, songwriting and singing. (Ouch, the alliteration!) Lyrically, Bernie Taupin takes an unusually chilling angle. Give Madman a listen and if guitars are your thing, listen to the earlier Mick Ronson and Michael Chapman version, which appears later on the deluxe edition from which I grabbed this week’s track as does an early piano demo of Tiny Dancer, which demonstrates the quality that production can bring to a track.
Happy Friday (on a Sunday)!
Listen to Madman Across the Water on Spotify here.
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